So I asked Richard at Astra, and he says that it is the self tamping group, but you can tamp if you like. I'm guessing that the self tamping bit is handled by the dispersion screen. It seems to be made so that it pushed out from the dispersion block (is this the correct name?) so that grounds get compressed without clogging it up. Instead of little holes behind the mesh there are concentric circles of curved lozenge shaped openings.

I performed the fastest Livietta clean up I have ever done this evening and have a very "vintage" but quite functional Livietta to take the place of the absent Livia 90. What I don't have is a 54m tamper (sold mine along with my Maximatic). If anyone has one that they would be willing to bring along I would really appreciate it, using those black plastic things is awful.

Echoing Brian - Big thanks for putting this together, and thanks to Bobby for making Demitasse available. Always good to see familiar faces and meet a few new folks. Looking forward to the next one, whatever it may be. I'll always be willing to bring one of the Caravels when we do the lever version.

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